Technology, Pedagogy and Education Reflections On The Accomplishment of What Teachers Know, Do and Believe in A Digital Age Loveless

Technology, Pedagogy and Education
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Technology, pedagogy and education: reflections

on the accomplishment of what teachers know, do
and believe in a digital age
Avril Loveless
To cite this article: Avril Loveless (2011) Technology, pedagogy and education: reflections
on the accomplishment of what teachers know, do and believe in a digital age, Technology,
Pedagogy and Education, 20:3, 301-316, DOI: 10.1080/1475939X.2011.610931
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Technology, pedagogy and education: reections on the

accomplishment of what teachers know, do and believe in a
digital age
Downloaded by [The Library, University of Witwatersrand] at 05:17 24 March 2016
Avril Loveless*
University of Brighton, UK
(Received 7 December 2010; nal version received 2 May 2011)
In 2004 Technology, Pedagogy and Education published a review of literature
which framed current understandings of pedagogy and the implications for the use
of ICT in learning and teaching in formal educational settings. This article revisits
the topic in the light of more recent developments in understandings of pedagogy.
It offers three theoretical frameworks for understanding what teachers know, do
and believe when using digital media in their practice: pedagogy and design; pedagogy and Person-Plus; and pedagogical reasoning and ICT. Examples of pedagogy and ICT are then illustrated by selected examples of research and related to a
model of teacher knowledge which acknowledges the interaction between context,
tools for learning and teaching, and content. The conclusions draw attention to
how an approach to pedagogy which is constructive, interactive and complex is
accomplished through praxis, the core of teacher education.
Keywords: teacher education; digital technology; ICT; pedagogy
Introduction
In 2004 Technology, Pedagogy and Education published a review of literature which
framed current understandings of pedagogy and the implications for the use of ICT in
learning and teaching in formal educational settings (Webb & Cox, 2004). This article
revisits the topic in the light of more recent developments in understandings of pedagogy. It discusses three frameworks for thinking about the What?, How? and
Why? questions of teaching with information and communications technologies
(ICT): pedagogy and design; pedagogy and Person-Plus; and pedagogical reasoning
and ICT. Examples of pedagogy and ICT are then illustrated by selected examples of
research. The discussion is underpinned by an understanding of pedagogy as relationship, conversation, reection and action between teachers, learners, subjects and tools.
The intention of the article is to contribute to teacher education which is able to understand the wider context, the tools and the content of teachers pedagogy with digital
media as Freire urged, to read the world of our practice (Freire & Macedo, 1987).
Pedagogy and teacher professional knowledge: rening our understanding
Models of pedagogy have developed over the decades to inform thinking in theory
and practice, highlighting interaction, integration and complexity. Starting with the
*Email: A.M.Loveless@brighton.ac.uk
ISSN 1475-939X print/ISSN 1747-5139 online
2011 Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2011.610931
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premise that good teachers are intellectually curious about pedagogy, Leach and
Moon address understandings of the contextual, political and socio-cultural nature
of pedagogy (2008, p. 1). Seven inter-related dimensions of pedagogy are described
as: goals and purposes; views of mind and knowledge; views of learning and learners; learning and assessment activities; roles and relationships; discourse; and tools
and technologies. An earlier work (Banks, Leach, & Moon, 1999) proposed a
model of teacher professional knowledge which drew upon a range of understandings of teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1987); intelligence (Gardner, 1993); situated
learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991); transposition of subject knowledge (Chevellard,
2007); and overlapping identities in communities of practice (Wenger, 1998).
Shulman addresses the nature of professional knowledge which enables teachers
to be ready, willing and able to teach, locating individuals clearly within the communities in which they act, and the wider policy and resource contexts in which they
practise (Shulman & Shulman, 2004). His later work acknowledges the capital of
the social, cultural and political contexts in which learning and teaching take place,
and draws attention to the complex interactions and relationships between teachers,
learners, knowledge domains, communities and wider factors (see Figure 1).
Pedagogy and design
Watkins and Mortimore offered a denition of pedagogy as any conscious activity
by one person designed to enhance learning in another (1999, p. 17). Design for
learning encapsulates contemporary understandings of teaching which focus on a
Figure 1. Levels of analysis: individual, community and policy (from Shulman & Shulman,
2004, p. 268).
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systematic approach with rules based on evidence, and a set of contextualised practices that are constantly adapting to circumstances (Beetham & Sharpe, 2007, p.
6). Good pedagogical design needs to express the congruence between the content,
teaching strategies, learning environment, assessment and feedback, and reect
underlying theories of learning and value (Hudson, 2011; Kalantzis & Cope, 2010;
Mayes & de Freitas, 2007).
The implications of thinking of design in pedagogy are echoed in recent thinking and research which elaborate upon European understandings of Didaktik, a
concept which is not clearly reected in Anglo-American traditions of approaches
to teaching and learning. Didaktik can be described as the focus on the planned
support for learning to acquire Bildung, which is often translated as formation,
education or erudition in becoming an educated person able to engage purposefully
in the world. Klafki (2000) identies elements of Bildung as self-determination,
co-determination, and solidarity, in which individuals rights and contributions to
society are justied in association with helping others.
Taking pains is how Hillocks describes how teachers represent and transform
subject concepts appropriately for learners (Hillocks, 1999). It is this taking pains
in preparing to teach, that Klafki describes as didactic analysis. This process is
itself draft in nature, it is the design of opportunities and possibilities for pupils,
and requires an openness of mind in the relationship between content, teacher and
pupil. It is similar to the preparation for processes of creative improvisation in the
moments in which teachers and pupils make conceptual connections within subject
domains (Loveless, 2007, 2011).
Klafkis approach to didactic analysis starts with the signicance, meaning and
value in preparing teaching activities grounded in relationship to learners:
(1) What wider or general sense of reality do these contents exemplify and open
up for the learner? What basic phenomenon or fundamental principle, what
law, criterion, problem, method, technique or attitude can be grasped by
dealing with this content as an example?
(2) What signicance does the content in question or the experience, knowledge,
ability or skill to be acquired through this topic already possess in the minds
of the learners?
(3) What constitutes the topics signicance for the learners future?
(4) What is the structure of the content which has been placed into a specically
pedagogical perspective by questions 1 and 2?
(5) What are the special cases, phenomena, situations, experiments, persons, elements of aesthetic experience, and so forth, in terms of which the structure
of the content in question can become interesting, stimulating, approachable,
conceivable, or vivid for learners?
These questions root understandings of pedagogy in the Why? questions, making critical connections with the wider landscapes of knowing in our society and
time, embodying what is to be human through our teaching. Didaktik is therefore
closely linked to universal, educational questions, placing the discussions of pedagogy clearly in wider social, cultural and political meanings for teachers and education systems. Hudson (2007) describes how our growing familiarity with concepts
of Didaktik has offered fresh perspectives on meaning and intentionality, attention
to studying, tools for holding complexity, and the role of the teacher.
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A. Loveless
Pedagogy and Person-Plus

The role of technologies in the design of learning environments and construction of
knowledge has been supported by the recognition of the contribution of socio-cultural-historical theories of human activity. Somekh (2007) reects on her career
experience as a researcher engaged in questions of ICT and innovation, and draws
attention to the use of these theoretical frames built upon Vygotskys concept of
mediation of human action, embedded in culture, and distributed through dialogue
with others and the use of artefacts and tools (Pea, 1993; Perkins, 1993; Salomon,
1993; Salomon & Perkins, 2005; Wertsch, 1998).
Perkins expressed this as Person-Plus, drawing attention to the characteristics
of the surround with opportunities for access to knowledge, retrieval, representation and construction. He warned of the dangers of the nger-tip effect, where
access to tools and artefacts alone does not necessarily lead to learning without
some form of executive function to synthesise and guide the making of meaning
in a learning environment (Perkins, 1993). Researchers and practitioners further
examined the relationships between the actors, tasks, rules, organisational structures,
roles, and tools in situations of innovation and change with digital technologies,
whilst ecological approaches to learning environments and experiences helped to
further develop our understanding of contexts and cultures (see for example, Dillon,
2004; Loi & Dillon, 2006; Luckin, 2008; Nardi & ODay, 1999; Saljo, 2010;
Somekh, 2001, 2007).
Our theoretical understandings of pedagogy have developed beyond Shulmans
early characteristics of teacher knowledge as static and located in the individual.
They now incorporate understandings of the construction of knowledge through distributed cognition, design, interaction, integration, context, complexity, dialogue,
conversation, concepts and relationships. Educators engaging in continuing professional development will acknowledge the importance of active practice, peer to peer
sharing, wider professional networks, and reection.
Pedagogical reasoning and ICT

Three different facets in teachers pedagogical reasoning with ICT can be considered. First, wider economic, social and cultural contexts which inuence educational
policy and the provision of ICT resources for learning and teaching. Second, metaphors for ICT and the roles that digital technologies might play in teaching activities. Third, understanding of the development of teacher knowledge with ICT,
namely Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.
Wider contexts for ICT in education

The wider social, economic and policy context of ICT has an inuence on strategies
and resourcing for education, from the provision of ICT equipment in schools and
designing schools for the future, to commissioning research in technology-enhanced
learning and providing continuing professional development for practitioners (Becta,
2007; Carmichael, 2007; Department for Education and Skills, 2005; Underwood
et al., 2010; Watson, Cox, & Johnson, 1993).
Educators perceive that ICT might be important in their work for three different
reasons, which themselves can be in tension. ICT can be perceived as a social and
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cultural phenomenon; as a resource for learning and teaching; and as a new eld of
concepts and affordances for learning and teaching. The challenges to pedagogy lie
in the weaving together of these three perceptions. It is, however, interesting to note
that the use of ICT to support learning and for its own sake in the present moment
of teaching, rather than as a rehearsal for vocational purposes, is not often the
teachers rst reported reason for using ICT in their work (Loveless, 2003). It is
important to recognise the place of our interest in technology in education within
the wider landscape of political and social change (Dale, 1999; Facer, 2011; Selwyn, 2011). The perception of ICT as a social and cultural phenomenon is echoed
in UK government policy initiatives, such Harnessing Technology (Becta, 2008),
and the identication of trends affecting the use of technologies in learning, such as
economic policy, globalisation, capital investment programmes, expanded childrens
workforce, non-traditional education providers, and commercial technological innovations (Chowcat, Phillips, Popham, & Jones, 2008). Morgan and Williamson
(2008) present an overview of a longer history of contexts for educational policy,
discussing some of the contemporary connections between neat capitalism and
neat schooling, characterised by informality, social conscience, innovation, listening to customers, exibility, and fun.
As well as perceiving the economic and vocational implications for ICT in education, teachers make pedagogical decisions within the wider context of society and
culture. In economically developed societies, technologies are becoming embedded
in the fabric of every activity they are part of the infrastructure that supports
learning, communication and participation (Livingstone, 2008, p. 6). It can be
argued that the contemporary world of childhood and youth in developed countries
is permeated by digital media which shape communication and interaction. These
changes challenge our understanding of the digital divide, digital culture, digital
safety and digital media literacy for young learners (Buckingham, 2007; Livingstone, 2009; Sefton-Green, 2006).
There are some key themes in the use of mobile technologies that educators
might nd challenging, but might recognise and incorporate into pedagogic design
and teaching strategies. Gathering contextual information might cross boundaries of
privacy or anonymity. Mobility and access beyond traditional classrooms might take
learners into unplanned places. Mobile learning experiences over periods of time
and extent of place might need to be captured, organised and retrieved meaningfully. Informality and authenticity might be threatened if the boundaries of students
social networks are crossed or invaded by formal educational activities. Ownership
and control of personal technologies might pose challenges in formal educational
settings such as classrooms (Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula, & Sharples, 2004).
Research studies highlight the potential that mobile and wireless technologies offer
for the intensication of connections between learners and the extension of learning
communities and contexts (Roschelle, Sharples, & Chan, 2005; Sharples, Taylor, &
Vavoula, 2007).
Kress and Pachler argue that digital technologies and media have shaped not
only social and cultural contexts, but also approaches to, and environments for,
learning. Their discussion of mobile learning focuses not on the technologies, but
on the changes in the ways we engage with information. Learning experiences can
be more uid, interactive and multimodal. They are more mobile, not because the
technologies are necessarily mobile, but because the learner can be placed more
centrally, given access to information and opportunities to make meanings in a
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A. Loveless
variety of linked environments. Where such a linked, wider world is the curriculum,
there are important questions to be asked about the place of individuals and communities within a neo-liberal view of markets in which the possession of an education might be approached as a global commodity to be traded, rather than a quality
of public good for those individuals and communities (Kress & Pachler, 2007).
Metaphors for ICT and pedagogy
The metaphors that have been used to describe the roles of ICT in pedagogical
designs and activities offer insights into how teachers and software designers understand the relationship between learners, teachers, knowledge and digital technologies. Stevenson (2008) discussed a model for pedagogy, based on Activity Theory,
which highlighted these relationships between the rules, management and artefacts
in a teaching activity. In 60 snapshots of teachers and learners in schools, he identied four common metaphors of ICT as resource, tutor, environment and tool. The
metaphors demonstrate different degrees of control, motivation, access and choice
for learners and teachers.
The metaphor of resource expresses the ways in which teachers have different
digital technologies to hand, and are able to select them according to their needs.
They are often used to reproduce or imitate other resources to support familiar or
common practice in a non-digital curriculum, such as interactive whiteboards for
presentation.
Using ICT as a tutor draws upon learning theories which support a range of
learning experiences, from practice of skills, to developing conceptual understanding. The ICT resources are designed to respond to and scaffold learners needs, and
learners have more control and access and some degree of task choice. Early examples of such applications were the Integrated Learning Systems, but there is still
work to be done to understand the learners contexts and how applications might
adapt and adopt intelligent strategies for dialogue and re-use (Ravenscroft &
Cook, 2007).
ICT as an environment was a useful metaphor with applications which provided microworlds where learners could explore, build and present their understandings of different concepts, from programming in Logo to working with
mathematical models or designing multimedia and hypertextual texts. Such microworlds are characterised by the high degree of learner control and autonomy, and
are an intrinsic part of the conceptual learning process itself. The environment
metaphor encourages the approach to the learner teaching the computer, rather
than the computer as a resource which teaches the learner.
The metaphor of ICT as a tool is commonly used, although not always with a
shared understanding of the possibilities of the term. ICT can be described as just
a tool to be picked up and used to do a task, rather like the resource. However digital technologies can also be used to support conceptual understanding and extend
thinking. Jonassons description of applications such as spreadsheets, databases and
simulations as mindtools, captures some of this more nuanced understanding of
the role of tools in mediating and shaping activities (Jonassen, 2006). Recognising
the potential and constraints of ICT as a tool which supports and shapes learning,
requires teachers to have a knowledge of the subject domain and competence in the
appropriate use of the technologies a capability to orchestrate the affordances
and constraints in the setting (Kennewell, 2001, p. 107).
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Technological Pedagogic Content Knowledge

Webb and Cox (2004) recognised the additional complexity in pedagogical reasoning when ICT resources are involved, whether that be as a resource, a tutor, an
environment or a tool. The knowledge, skills and understanding that teachers
require have long been a matter of interest, and there has been a range of studies to
explore the characteristics of teacher professional knowledge, from ICT capability
to metaphors for pedagogic content knowledge (see for example Kennewell, 1995;
Woollard, 2005).
Koehler, Mishra, and Yahya (2007) offer a model to describe the interactive,
relational nature of teacher knowledge which encompasses content, pedagogy and
technology. Building on Shulmans early framework, they conceptualise their model
as Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK), and argue that intelligent pedagogical uses of technology require the development of a complex, situated
form of knowledge (Koehler et al., 2007, p. 741) (see Figure 2).
A critique and extension of the concept of TPCK is offered by Angeli and Valanides (2009). They suggest that the model described by Koehler et al. is general,
but does not discuss how the potential and constraints of ICT tools might shape
content and pedagogy. Using a word processor, for example, with its potential for
editing, revision, and presentation, might change the experience of writing and composition, and challenge teachers to approach various processes and purposes of writing somewhat differently than with pen and paper (Daiute, 1985). They argue that
TPCK emerges from the interaction between pedagogy, content and technology and
is new knowledge, which needs an explicit focus in order for teachers to make the
connections between their knowledge and experiences.
These three facets in teachers pedagogical reasoning with ICT the wider context, metaphors for roles, and a distinctive Technological, Pedagogical Content
Knowledge contribute to didactic analysis in which ICT plays a role as context,
tools for learning and teaching, and content.
Figure 2. The interaction of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (from Koehler

et al., 2007, p. 742).
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A. Loveless
Expressions of pedagogy and ICT

Previous sections offered a discussion of broad understandings of pedagogy, and a
closer focus on how the presence and use of ICT changes the cultural context,
the relationship and roles between teachers, learners and technologies, and
descriptions of teachers professional knowledge. This section will consider ve
selected research studies which aimed to address particular questions of pedagogy
with digital technologies, offering evidence to support some of the features of
pedagogy and ICT outlined thus far. Each demonstrates aspects of the individual,
community and policy levels of analysis described by Shulman and Shulman
(2004) (see Figure 1).
The Interactive Education Project

The Interactive Education Project examined the relationship between ICT and learning in curriculum subjects in schools. A key focus was on the design of learning
and teaching activities, where teachers and researchers worked together in Subject
Design Initiatives (SDI) to identify how ICT might be used to support the teaching
of concepts or topics which pupils often found difcult to understand. The design
principles were grounded in three theoretical perspectives:
(1) The role of pedagogical content knowledge and teachers underlying beliefs
about learning and knowledge.
(2) The contribution of workbench communities of small groups of teachers
and researchers working together to solve pedagogical problems, using intellectual and material tools in ways which were interactive and interdependent.
(3) The focus on intellectual activities of planning, enacting and reecting upon
teaching.
These perspectives reected the approach of the project to design, scaffolding,
and mutual recognition of expertise within the SDI communities, rather than a topdown imposition of the model, or an unsupported exploration of ideas. The study
identied a wide range of issues to be considered within subject cultures which
reected levels of individual understanding, community knowledge bases and wider
curricular and technical capital. There was a desire by teachers to develop their use
of ICT tools purposefully, yet the pedagogic use of ICT often increased the complexity of learning and teaching in a subject. This did, however, afford opportunities
for new approaches in thinking and engagement in the subject areas, and highlighted the strength of the role/s of the teacher. There was also a realisation of the
unpredictable, often messy and open-ended nature of these ways of working to
design and develop rich learning environments (see for example Gall & Breeze,
2005; John & Sutherland, 2004, 2005; La Velle, Wishart, McFarlane, Brawn, &
John, 2007).
The Pedagogy with E-Learning Resources Project (PELRS)

This project identied the theoretical framework for research with teachers designing and preparing their lessons in schools. Drawing upon Activity Theory as a
planning frame, the project enabled teachers and researchers to develop their
309
understanding of the contribution of ICT as a tool mediating purposeful activity to

realise particular learning objectives (Pearson & Somekh, 2006). The project was
predicated on the negotiation of expertise and roles in the partnership between
pupils, teachers and researchers, whilst working within the requirements of the systems of curriculum and assessment frameworks. The pedagogic strategies which
underpinned the action research were: pupils as teachers; pupils as media producers;
pupil voice; and learning online.
After negotiating the learning objectives and outcomes, pupils were able to
choose the ICT tools they needed in their learning activities for researching information, presenting their ideas and outcomes, and capturing the processes involved
in the work. The focus on the learning outcomes of the project was on the development of creative learning, active citizenship, cognitive engagement, and meta-cognition, which were observed and reported by the project participants. Constraints on
the full development of these ways of working were encountered through the
restrictions in ICT infrastructure and access in schools, and the inexibility of timetabled activities in many schools, particularly in the secondary phase (General
Teaching Council for England, 2006). The pedagogic contribution of the ICT
resources within this project was evident in the changes to ways of working
between pupils and teachers, and the acknowledgement of pupil expertise in making
and using choices with ICT tools (Somekh, 2007). Individual and institutional
reections rooted the teachers vision, motivation, understanding and practice in
pupil capability and voice.
The mobile Create-A-Scape project
The use of mobile technologies to foster creativity, sense of place and teacher
knowledge was explored in the Create-A-Scape project, which provided opportunities for learners to develop a sense of place through making connections and
associations whilst moving through and engaging with physical spaces (Loveless,
Denning, Fisher, & Higgins, 2008). Mediascapes are collections of location-sensitive texts, sounds and images that are geo-tagged or attached to the local landscape, and learners use mobile technologies, such as PDAs, to roam in a space to
detect and respond to these multimedia tags. Create-A-Scape is a toolkit
designed for teachers and pupils to plan and create mediascapes, attaching location-sensitive texts, sounds and images on a digital canvas mapped onto a local
landscape.
After a national survey of general use by teachers, the study explored how ve
teachers in a variety of primary and secondary phase settings expressed their professional knowledge with this innovation. Interview and observation data were analysed within theoretical frameworks of creativity, sense of place and teacher
knowledge. In this third theme, the pedagogical implications and possibilities for
such mobile resources emerged. The teachers and advisors designed an imaginative
variety of mediascapes, from fantasy worlds of treasure islands and moonwalks, to
digital guides to the local campus and area. The teachers were secure in their content knowledge literacy, geography, mathematics, science, personal, social and
health education, drama, ICT and able to make connections between them to
offer conceptual challenges for the learners. They demonstrated sophisticated teaching strategies as the pupils roamed beyond the familiar contexts of classroom and
curriculum. The teachers also acknowledged their place in a wider community and
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network of teachers, technicians and national organisations, such as Futurelab,

which offered support. Their ideas were realised as a balance between formal policy initiatives, such as Fast Track or personalisation, and more marginal and creative possibilities for themselves and for the pupils. The innovations with the
mobile devices challenged many aspects of the teachers familiar practice, yet they
were condent and able to take risks to explore their ideas. The teachers demonstrated their capabilities as curriculum interpreters and adapters as well as curriculum users, which Shulman and Shulman assert as central to curriculum and
pedagogy reform (2004).
Student teachers online presence and learning dialogues
Recent research in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), social networking and
Web 2.0 technologies recognises the tensions between the open-ended, collaborative
and somewhat anarchic characteristics of the use of the social web, and the
demands of more structured, guided and authoritative pedagogy. Crook asserts that
such technologies are not usefully seen as replacements for educational interpersonal interactions (Crook, 2008). A range of studies suggest that a reconguration
of learning practices, rather than claims for transformation, might be a fruitful way
forward in research, exploring ways to embrace features such as greater openness,
personalization, creativity and collaboration without debunking pedagogy, structure
and even constraint (Ravenscroft, 2009, p. 4).
A study of pedagogical presence in online spaces focused on student teachers
developing their understanding of their roles in learning dialogues with pupils
(Turvey, 2008). Student teachers were supported in reecting on their pedagogical
strategies in online conversations by considering the differences between informal,
everyday communications online and those supporting more structured learning and
teaching activities. The VLE Moodle was used as part of a project in which student
teacher ICT specialists worked with a class of 910-year-old children with online
and face-to-face activities, focusing on the theme of bullying. Analysis of online
communications and interviews with student teachers identied two themes: the students use of strategies for pedagogical presence online, and their perceptions of
the value of the activity. The student teachers were observed to adopt a pedagogical
presence to facilitate the discourse through activities such as summarising discussion, referring back to childrens earlier ideas, praising, justifying ideas, challenging
childrens views or asking rhetorical questions. There were, however, limitations in
the use of probing questions and the recognition of pacing and timing to make
interventions which might have fostered a greater level or depth in the pupils
thinking about the topic. This may indicate the student teachers lack of experience,
but offers opportunities for them to analyse and reect upon the nature of their
online dialogue in such a structured exchange. When the student teachers reected
on their perceptions of the value of the online activity, some saw its contribution
within a wider classroom discourse, whilst others focused on the activity with
Moodle as a more isolated activity. It was noticeable that some of the students were
more familiar than others with social networking activities beyond formal education
settings, and were able to adopt these practices within their pedagogical repertoire
in a more authentic manner. The student teachers brought their wider cultural capital in the use of social media to the activity, challenging or extending some of their
usual practices and relationships with the children.
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Validating a model for pedagogy and ICT across phases

Mayes and de Freitas consider the implications of theories of learning and their
expression in pedagogical design, and describe different models of pedagogy according to the priorities emerging from their theoretical basis associative, cognitive and
situative (Mayes & de Freitas, 2007). De Freitas, Oliver, Mee, and Mayes (2008)
worked with teachers from primary, secondary, post-compulsory, higher education
and community settings to study the response to and validity of a model of pedagogy
developed by Becta (formerly the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency) Modelling Effective E-Learning. The model was a work-in-progress,
intended to support planning and development for practitioners and institutions. The
participants in the research engaged in activities which helped them to articulate and
represent the range of processes involved in pedagogical design, and the relationships
between those processes. Although the presentation of the model itself was reported
to be rather abstract and static, the discussion enabled the practitioners to describe the
starting points and aims of their pedagogy in their own words and to reect their priorities within their own sectors. The value in the activity lay, not so much in the application of a standard model, but in the process of engaging with and making sense of
its elements in relation to the teachers professional knowledge and context. The study
indicated that a one-size-ts-all approach to modelling pedagogy might not be
appropriate, but that offering opportunities to recognise teachers knowledge and their
willingness to engage with adapting and creating representations of their practice was
helpful (De Freitas et al., 2008).
These selected studies suggest that ICT is more than just a tool, and contributes disruptive, distinctive relationships in pedagogical activities. In preparing to
use ICT, teachers pedagogical reasoning needs to take into account the wider subject and community contexts for the learning experience; the expertise and roles of
all participants; and the affordances of the technologies for particular purposes.
Models of pedagogy need to be relevant, grounded in teacher experience, exible,
complex and open to reection and adaptation.
Implications for teacher education
Our understandings of pedagogy encompass the relationships between what we teach,
how we teach it, and why it matters in our communities, societies and times. I have
argued that ICT can be viewed as tools that shape these three dimensions to our practice as educators: in the curriculum that we teach; in the local strategies that we
employ; and in the wider physical, social and cultural contexts in which we teach.
Teacher education from initial teacher training to continuing professional
development in all sectors has grappled with the challenges of supporting educators to be ready, willing and able in participating in a digital age (see Figure 1).
Government strategies contribute to the wider context of capital provided in
policy, resources and educational reform. They are part of the backdrop to the
economic, social and cultural landscape within which educators engage in learning
and teaching in times of change, and with the systemic, organisational and individual demands that it places upon the educational workforce. The connections
between the aims of policies, and the questions about why they matter in the wider
purposes of education, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment can be explored with
learning professionals. Such questions also lead to discussion of the nature and purpose of the curriculum that is designed and offered at this level of capital.
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At the community level, there is a recognition that learning professionals are

situated in communities of practice which share knowledge and understanding in
action (Wenger, 1998). As individuals they contribute to and shape their various
communities, just as they are inuenced and shaped by being members of those
communities. Such communities of educators are both formal and institutional, such
as within a school or national and international professional associations; and informal and unbounded, such as the international MirandaNet community or a social
network focused on professional concerns. The community knowledge base is
interactive and complex. Preparing and planning the use of ICT to enhance learning
and teaching requires an understanding of how ICT tools might support design for
learning in particular subject content areas as well as in general processes, roles and
strategies in learning and teaching. Educators need to relate examples of good
practice to the reality and materiality of their own contexts and experiences, and
Selwyn reminds us that it is important to try to understand the state of the actual
and recognise different ways in which we might look at educational technology and
its place in learning and teaching (Selwyn, 2008).
The individual level integrates all three dimensions of Why?, What? and
How?. The vision and motivation of educators are grounded in their beliefs about
why they think their practice matters, and how they can best design experiences
and environments for learners. Their understanding of the use of ICT tools is inuenced by their theories of learning, which are themselves dynamic and changing as
our theoretical frameworks develop. Signicantly different approaches to pedagogy
and ICT will emerge from different understandings. Teachers who see ICT as just a
tool to mimic familiar and traditional tasks will embody very different activities
from teachers who work with an ecological understanding of people in learning
environments with digital technologies which shape the nature of the task itself
(Dillon, 2006; Luckin, 2008).
Conclusions
Pedagogy which recognises the complex relationship between context, tools for
learning and teaching, and content, will not be static or staged. Educators capabilities and competences with ICT tools will be related to both individual and community factors, and learning professionals can be more or less capable in different
contexts at different times (Benzie, 2000). There are concerns that models of professional development which focus on technical competences without pedagogical reasoning are retooling teachers for specic tasks, rather than engaging in the more
substantial nature of pedagogy (Watson, 2001). Fisher, Higgins, and Loveless
(2006) note:
An instrumental model of teacher development is limited. It attempts to capture, copy
and disseminate elements of good practice, out of the context in which they were
developed, in order to refresh the educational process as if retooling an industrial production line. This may appear to meet short-term needs, but does little to develop
reexive professionals capable of intelligent action in fast-changing contexts. (Fisher
et al., 2006, p. 39)
Continuing professional development which fosters effective pedagogy and ICT

within the education workforce needs to model such pedagogy in action. It needs
to recognise the wider economic, social and cultural context which inuences
313
educational policy and the provision of ICT resources for learning and teaching; to
reect an informed and nuanced use of ICT as tools for learning and teaching; and
acknowledge the interactive and situated nature of professional knowledge with to
ICT. Continuing professional development for learning professionals will model the
integration of context, community and individual needs within learning communities in which professional knowledge, like intelligence, is not transmitted as a possession, but dynamically accomplished (Pea, 1993; Pickering, Daly, & Pachler,
2007).
Acknowledgement
Becta (formerly the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency)
commissioned a research review on pedagogy and ICT from the author in 2009. This article
is a revised and reviewed version of that report, available from http://www.itte.org.uk/node/
453 under Open Government Licence for public sector information.
Notes on contributor
Avril Loveless is Professor of Education at the University of Brighton, UK. Her research
interests focus on understandings of creativity; pedagogy and teacher knowledge; and ICT
capability within an early 21st century education system.
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